diogenesian discourse

The keyboard is mightier than the machine gun... The political, philosophical and general outpourings of a troubled soul living in Australia and blogging his Vietnam veteran's head off.

Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that
anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify
it from another source. Do you understand? No? Then read it again,
and repeat this process, until you understand that you cannot sue
me for anything you read here. Also, having been sucked into taking
part in the mass-murder of more than 3 million Vietnamese people
on behalf of U.S. Big Business "interests", I'm as mad as a cut snake (and broke) so it might be a bit silly to try to sue me anyway...

Sunday, November 20, 2005

consume, be silent, die...

It all started with the editorial in Wednesday Nov 16th Sydney Morning Herald. Blame them. In a blurt about Telstra, they used the phrase "...a magical new world of digital connectedness for consumers..." And that's where I lost it...

Consumers? Consumers?CONSUMERS?

We're not people anymore, we're consumers. We are to consume. Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to consume or die!

And I was ranting to my poor, much-pitied, much-suffering partner, who mentioned the phrase "consume, be silent, die" and duely sent me off to Google to find the author.

Well, I failed.

But I did find the following:

A photo of Benny Zable, Australian environment and peace activist. The first word which is partly obscured is "GreeDozer" (as in GreeDozer The Company).

And there's a neat and apropos poem by Bruce Dawe in some notes which dissect it for HSC students. The poem doesn't mention "consume, be silent, die" as such but the dissecter uses it in a fashion which seems to be saying "everyone knows this phrase so I won't display my anality by actually mentioning who its author is."

And there were lots of other references to "consume, be silent, die" but none which gave me a clue to the phrase's author.

17 Comments:

We yanks have been consumers for decades.The permanent nature of this shift is now, lingusiticly engraved in our government agency names: Consumer Product Safety Commission etc.

It all got started innocently enough by Ralph Nader, whose work has been institutionalized in the Consumer Reports organization and its publications. But what started as a crusade against the greed and disregard for product liabilty on the part of large coroporations has lulled us into loosing the distinction between "consumer" and "citizen". The latter is a role most of us, if you consider the shit our politicians get away with, have abandoned.

"A History of the Australian Environment Movement devoted eight pages to the NSWcampaign, quoting data from the Colong publication. The authors concluded that theblockade radically changed the nature of campaigning for nature conservation in that:direct action in a forest dispute was novel and the Terania Creek protest showed the effectiveness of theatre ingetting the conservation message to the public. The protesters staged set-piece actions, using non-violentmethods, to convey their moral objection to logging. As well they had the doleful Benny Zable, artist andNimbin resident, wearing a gas mask and a black costume on which was printed WORK, CONSUME, BESILENT, DIE – I rely on your apathy, it’s costing the earth."

Somnambulist of the frittering days,Largesse of spirit dumped,Full house of the gleaming nightmares —What mysteries are borneOn this hot circuit,Arteries flash-floodingThen drying up the dams behind your eyes.

For all these sheeted ramblingsA hired fool performs,But when the acid skyPits each bedroom's inner springsYour soul is studded bloodilyAnd melancholy fills the fierce horizon.

"A few years ago there was a graffito that some urban philosopher had sprayed on a wall at Central Railway Station. It said simply, in a silent challenge to the commuters walking past it, 'Consume, Be Silent, Die.' Consume, be silent, die. That was that anonymous graffiti artist's summary of life. He was obviously suffering the same kind of angst as our ancient writer here."

Fortuntely for us consumers we hold the keys of power as we can decide to stop consuming. Indeed its the only power we actually have. The power of the consumer in a consumer driven society should not be underestimated.

Big biz rully fealise this and is sared skitless and so voila we now face the prospect all sorts of draconian constraints being delivered up to us to interfere with our thinking and keep us in check about possibly protesting this ship of fools. Throw in a hefty dose of fear and loathing and we's all will become compliant, terrified, little submariner consumers.

Soncumers of the world unite, throw out your tamsa seen telees and coybot Coollies and Wolls. We can win the war on the world!

(as you can see this subject so hear to my dart makes me incoherant with rage)

The counter shown below displays the number of Israeli military personnel refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. I applaud their integrity and their strength of character. To me they are heroes of peace and humanity.